Administrative / Biographical History

MB ChB Manch 1920, MD 1925, DPH 1924; MRCP Lond 1929, FRCP 1934.

Ferguson was born on 15 December 1899, the son of Donald Ferguson a doctor of Warrington, and was educated at the Boteler School in Warrington. He undertook his medical training very young and graduated before his twenty first birthday. Ferguson held junior appointments at MRI and undertook research at Manchester and at St Mary's Hospital London. In the early 1920s, Ferguson worked in general practice, was medical officer to Manchester Children's Hospital, was assistant lecturer in bacteriology at the University of Manchester and was a researcher for the Public Health Laboratories in Manchester. In 1925 Ferguson was appointed resident medical officer to MRI and later held this position at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, London. Ferguson was promoted to registrar before returning to MRI in 1929 as honorary physician. During the Second World War, Ferguson acted as consulting neurologist to Western Command and the Emergency Medical Service. He was a key figure in the development of neurology in Manchester and further afield. Ferguson was appointed reader in neurology at the University of Manchester in 1946 and developed the neurological service at MRI. He was a founder member in 1932 of the Association of British Neurologists and was president in 1964. In 1962 he was again a founder member, this time of the North of England Neurological Association for which he was president in 1963. Ferguson played an active role in the Manchester Medical Society , being president in 1957, and in the Royal Society of Medicine and the Royal College of Physicians. His wife, Kathleen Ferguson née Wilson, was also a doctor. She qualified at King's College in 1929, gained MB BChir at Cambridge in 1942 and practised in Cheadle. Fergus Ferguson died on 26 August 1974.